"cooking show" news and stories

Rappers in the kitchen? This unlikely combination is about to hit television. Celebrity Cooking Showdown is a 5-night culinary contest between celebrities of varying degrees of success, like Tom Arnold and Gabrielle Reese. The semi-homemade Food Network celebrity, Sandra Lee, will host the show when it airs in April 2006, on NBC.

Feeling outdone by his rapper friend, Coolio, is working on his own cooking/variety show. In what is certain to be either the best or, depending on how you choose to look at it, the worst cooking show of all time, Coolio says " 'This won't be your average cooking show - it'll be Coolio with food. I'll be cooking, talking, rapping, dancing and singing.' There will be a four-piece band, a DJ, and strippers - all in the kitchen." That's right: strippers. Of course, Coolio says that he's a good cook, specializing in enchiladas, spaghetti and egg rolls, and though self-taught, it is entirely possible that he has a few genuine tips to share with the television audience.

But I'm not holding my breath.

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The second episode of Top Chef ran Wednesday night on Bravo. The bulk of the episode took place inside a fetish shop in San Francisco, since the main challenge involved making a sexy dessert. It was interesting to see some of the contestants cutting loose among the latex-clad party goers - one of which was RuPaul - while others were clearly out of their comfort zone. But as usual, there were two challenges on which the contestants were judged.

The first, quick challenge for immunity, dealt with presentation and the chefs were asked to make a fruit plate in 30 minutes. Elizabeth Faulkner of San Francisco's Citizen Cake served as the judge for this challenge. Some of the chefs really didn't seem to understand that not only were they making a fruit plate, but that they were competing against other people, so originality was important. Half of the chefs had garnished their plates with pineapple tops, which Ms. Faulkner didn't like, and the majority of the other plates looked very similar. She criticized some plates for looking like they were part of a buffet. The three top plates were Cynthia's, which was minimalist and used papaya seeds as a garnish, Harold's, which showcased his knife skills, and Stephen's, which used fruit and herb combinations served in espresso cups. Stephen won purely on originality; his presentation was gorgeous.